Ben has published ten novels, collections of poetry, short stories and essays over a span of over twenty years, the Booker prize-winning The Famished Road, being the most famous.

Ben was born in Nigeria to an Igbo mother and Urhobo father and now lives in London. His work has been translated into 26 languages and his most recent novel The Age of Magic came out in 2014.

Ben has a magical way with words, magically poetic yet grounded in a realism which keeps the reader relating to the themes, the message of his words.

Ben has described poetry as ‘the great river of soul-murmurings that runs within humanity’, and literature as ‘the encounter of possibilities’ that ‘tears up the script of what we think humanity to be’. Even in conversation, his words spin in poetic verse yet surprise with their simplicity, always delivering a message worth pondering.

Planetfem is a massive, lifelong fan and cannot wait to review Saturday night for our readers! If you want to join us, you can still buy tickets here if you’re lucky! Until then, we leave you with a tantalising snippet of the joys and revelations we can expect in this video in which Ben talks about the most prevalent technology of the human mind, storytelling.